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A potentially catastrophic landfall is expected Friday evening as a very powerful and dangerous Hurricane Patricia moves towards Mexico’s Pacific coast. Hurricane Patricia became the most powerful tropical cyclone ever measured in the Western Hemisphere on Friday morning as its maximum sustained winds reached an unprecedented 200 mph (320 kph).

The hurricane is forecast to make landfall in the Mexican state of Jalisco Friday evening as a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane capable of causing widespread destruction. Residents and authorities in Mexico are rushing to prepare for what will likely be the strongest hurricane to ever make landfall on that country’s Pacific coastline.

At 1 p.m. CDT, the eye of Hurricane Patricia was about 85 miles (135 kilometers) southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, and was moving north at 10 mph (16 kph).

In addition to its unprecedented 200-mph (320-kph) sustained winds, Hurricane Patricia now holds the record for lowest pressure in any hurricane on record. With a minimum central pressure of 880 millibars (25.99 inches of mercury) at the 4 a.m. CDT advisory, Patricia broke the record of 882 millibars set by Wilma almost exactly 10 years ago. At the 1 p.m. CDT advisory the minimum central pressure was lowered to 879 millibars (25.96 inches of mercury).

Data from an Air Force Hurricane Hunter airborne reconnaissance mission late Thursday night provided critical data demonstrating the extreme intensification of Hurricane Patricia in near-real time. A new NOAA reconnaissance aircraft reached the eye of Patricia early Friday afternoon to gather additional direct measurements of the storm’s intensity.

Unprecedented Among Pacific Hurricanes

Hurricane Patricia became the strongest Pacific hurricane on record shortly after midnight CDT early Friday. Air Force Hurricane Hunters had flown through the eye of Patricia and reported a sea-level pressure of 894 millibars as measured by a dropsonde inside the eye itself. Wind measurements suggested that the pressure measurement was not in the exact center of the eye and was probably not the absolute lowest pressure, prompting NHC to estimate the minimum central pressure at 892 millibars in its special 12:30 a.m. CDT advisory.

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Tropical cyclone strength comparisons are typically based on minimum central pressure. At 892 millibars, Patricia shattered the Eastern Pacific basin’s previous record of 902 millibars set by Hurricane Linda in 1997.

While a number of typhoons in the western North Pacific have been stronger, Patricia is by far the strongest hurricane in any basin where the term “hurricane” applies to tropical cyclones – namely, the central and eastern North Pacific basins and the North Atlantic basin, which includes the North Atlantic Ocean itself plus the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea.

Exceptionally Dangerous Situation in Mexico

The eye of Patricia is expected to move onshore either late Friday afternoon or Friday evening in the Mexican state of Jalisco, which includes the popular coastal resort city of Puerto Vallarta as well as the inland metropolis of Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city.

The adjoining states of Colima and Nayarit will also feel the effects of Hurricane Patricia, which in addition to catastrophic winds will also bring a formidable flood threat. Depending on the exact track of Patricia’s eye, the resort city of Manzanillo may experience destructive winds, and is very likely to see flooding rainfall, dangerous storm surge and large, battering ocean waves breaking onshore.

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Watches and warnings remain in effect for parts of Mexico’s Pacific coast:.

* A hurricane warning includes the Pacific coast of Mexico from San Blas to Punta San Telmo. This warning includes the major coastal resort cities of Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo.

* A hurricane watch is in effect east of Punta San Telmo to Lazaro Cardenas.

* A tropical storm warning is also in effect from east of Punta San Telmo to Lazaro Cardenas, as well as north of San Blas to El Roblito.

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A hurricane warning means that hurricane conditions are expected in the warning area within 48 hours. A watch means hurricane conditions are possible in the watch area.

Tropical storm conditions are possible early Friday in the warning areas, and hurricane force winds are expected to reach the warning area Friday afternoon or evening.

While the resort area of Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo may see heavy rainfall associated with Patricia, there are no watches or warnings for tropical storm or hurricane conditions there. Acapulco is also not under any watches or warnings for Patricia.

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Patricia is forecast to remain a Category 5 hurricane at landfall, making it capable of causing catastrophic wind damage.

The good news is that Category 5 winds are occurring over a very small area near the center, about 15 miles across. Otherwise, hurricane force winds extend outward up to 30 miles from the center and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 175 miles.

Only one Category 5 hurricane has ever been known to make landfall on Mexico’s Pacific coast. That hurricane followed a path similar to that of Hurricane Patricia and struck near Puerto Vallarta in late October 1959, causing some 1,800 deaths.

With Patricia less than 12 hours away from landfall, this is the first time a Category 5 hurricane has posed an imminent threat to land in North America since Hurricane Felix approached Nicaragua in September 2007.

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Patricia is expected to dump 8 to 12 inches (200 to 300 millimeters) of rain over the Mexican states of Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan and Guerrero. Life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides are possible. Localized amounts as high as 20 inches (500 millimeters) are possible.

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A dangerous storm surge is expected to produce significant coastal flooding near and to the right of where the center of Patricia makes landfall. In addition, Mexico’s national water commission, CONAGUA, warned Thursday that waves of up to 12 meters (39 feet) may crash onto beaches near the landfall point.

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As of today, no major hurricanes, defined as Category 3 or above, have struck the continental U.S. in a record-breaking 119 months, according to hurricane data kept by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Hurricane Research Division (HRC) dating back to 1851.

Last year, President Obama warned that hurricanes will become “more common and more devastating” because of climate change.

But Obama is now the longest serving president (since the 1851 start of NOAA’s data) not to see a major hurricane strike the U.S. during his time in office. He is also the first president since Benjamin Harris was in office 122 years ago to have no major hurricane strike during his term.

The last major hurricane to make landfall on the U.S. mainland was Hurricane Wilma, which came ashore on October 24, 2005.

That year was one of the most active hurricane seasons in recorded history, according to NOAA.

Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma all wreaked havoc on the U.S. during an intense two-month period between August 29 and October 24 of 2005.

However, during the nearly 10 years since Wilma struck the U.S., no major hurricanes have made landfall and none are expected by the end of the current hurricane season.

According to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, major hurricanes classified as Category 3 or above have sustained wind speeds of more than 111 miles per hour and are capable of causing “devastating” or “catastrophic” damage.

The previous record was an eight-year span during the 1860’s in which no major hurricanes struck the U.S.

The current hurricane drought is “a rare event” that is “unprecedented in the historical record,” according to Timothy Hall, a hurricane researcher at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Hall also said there is only a 39 percent chance that the current hurricane drought will end next year.

Researchers at the Centre for Marine Sciences at the University of the West Indies traced hurricane activity over the past 1,000 years by studying sediment deposits in Jamaica’s Grape Tree Pond, which gets very little precipitation outside of hurricane season.

“Our results corroborate evidence for the increasing trend of hurricane activity during the Industrial Era; however, we show that contemporary activity has not exceeded the range of natural climate variability exhibited during the last millennium,” according to a paper published August 5 in Nature.

Using new satellite data, researchers at University College London reported in Nature Geoscience on Monday that the total volume of sea ice in the Northern Hemisphere was well above average in the autumn of 2013, traditionally the end of the annual melt season, after an unusually cool summer when temperatures dropped to levels not seen since the 1990s.

“We now know it can recover by a significant amount if the melting season is cut short,” said the study’s lead author Rachel Tilling, a researcher who studies satellite observations of the Arctic. “The sea ice might be a little more resilient than we thought.”

About 40 percent of this carbon stays in the atmosphere and roughly 30 percent enters the ocean, according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. Scientists thought the remaining carbon was taken up by plants on land, but measurements show plants don’t absorb all of the leftover carbon. Scientists have been searching for a place on land where the additional carbon is being stored – the so-called “missing carbon sink.”

The new study suggests some of this carbon may be disappearing underneath the world’s deserts – a process exacerbated by irrigation. Scientists examining the flow of water through a Chinese desert found that carbon from the atmosphere is being absorbed by crops, released into the soil and transported underground in groundwater – a process that picked up when farming entered the region 2,000 years ago.

Underground aquifers store the dissolved carbon deep below the desert where it can’t escape back to the atmosphere, according to the new study.

Many of the comments in the desert piece focus on the replacement of the technical name “carbon dioxide” with the word “carbon”. This switch is misleading, as the former co-founder of Greenpeace and climate scare-science skeptic, Dr. Patrick Moore, discusses in the following Prager University video:

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Moore derides climate models in an wonderful article for Heartland, and he asserts that human emissions have been beneficial:

…My skepticism begins with the believers’ certainty they can predict the global climate with a computer model. The entire basis for the doomsday climate change scenario is the hypothesis increased atmospheric carbon dioxide due to fossil fuel emissions will heat the Earth to unlivable temperatures.

In fact, the Earth has been warming very gradually for 300 years, since the Little Ice Age ended, long before heavy use of fossil fuels. Prior to the Little Ice Age, during the Medieval Warm Period, Vikings colonized Greenland and Newfoundland, when it was warmer there than today. And during Roman times, it was warmer, long before fossil fuels revolutionized civilization.

The idea it would be catastrophic if carbon dioxide were to increase and average global temperature were to rise a few degrees is preposterous.

…Over the past 150 million years, carbon dioxide had been drawn down steadily (by plants) from about 3,000 parts per million to about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. If this trend continued, the carbon dioxide level would have become too low to support life on Earth. Human fossil fuel use and clearing land for crops have boosted carbon dioxide from its lowest level in the history of the Earth back to 400 parts per million today.

At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields. Farms and forests will produce more if carbon-dioxide keeps rising.

A carefully planned, 115-day scientific expedition on board the floating research vessel, the CCGS Amundsen, has been derailed as the icebreaker was called to help resupply ships navigate heavy ice in Hudson Bay.

“Obviously it has a large impact on us,” says Martin Fortier, executive director of ArcticNet, which coordinates research on the vessel. “It’s a frustrating situation.”

During the summer, the Amundsen operates as a floating research centre with experiments running 24 hours a day. This year it was scheduled to reach North Baffin Bay.

But the icebreaker has been rerouted to escort commercial ships en route to resupply communities in Northern Quebec on the eastern side of Hudson Bay.

Johnny Leclair, assistant commissioner for the Coast Guard, said Tuesday conditions in the area are the worst he’s seen in 20 years.”